Cosla in warning to Ministers about centralising services

Chief Scottish Political Correspondent

Monday 24 September 2012

THE new head of local government umberella body Cosla has fired a warning shot across the bows of Ministers looking to centralise services.

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ROBBIE DINWOODIE CHIEF SCOTTISH POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT

David O'Neill claims his colleagues will accept reform in the name of efficiency, but not on the say-so of mere "assertion" from Ministers demanding change.

He wants proof of evidence of the benefits of change. "Nobody is defending either the status quo or 'their own patch' simply for the sake of it."

"Cosla's attitude is that local government is and should be prepared to change when it can be demonstrated the changes proposed will actually solve the problem for the long term and deliver better more sustainable services," he added.He said: "An understandable frustration might be that collecting the evidence, examining alternative models of both local accountability and service delivery is simply taking too much time and I would agree with those who are pressing very strongly for that work to be speeded up so that we can commit ourselves to thought through solutions. "However, the danger is that in our frustration to speed things up, we simply jump to conclusions that have no basis in evidence, no real likelihood of success and are predicated on prejudice and short-termism rather than longer term sustainability."He argues: "There must be a debate that thoroughly examines the commonly held view that it is always cheaper and more effective to create a single massive centralised structure for the delivery of local public services rather than a more heavily decentralised and locally-driven model."I do not understand why this view is so strongly held without there being much evidence to support it."Mr O'Neill said that the new Police and Fire and Rescue Services will cost less not because of the fact they will need less resources but because Central Government will cut their budgets."If the same reduced allocation had been awarded to the previous eight-force model, I am sure a similar reduction in overall cost would have been delivered."

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Cosla in warning to Ministers about centralising services

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